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Saturday, 15 August 2015

'The Sharpening of The Sword' - A Conversation with J.D. Cronise

By: Phil Weller

‘They may have built their reputation on crushing riffs and unquenchable
grooves, but 2015 sees a The Sword a different, but altogether more deadly
weapon’

_____________

“The
human heart is the lousiest there is in all of nature,” – Michael Bulgakov

Upon
the release of an established band’s latest album, the fickleness of human
nature so often bellows – or as is the case these days, is typed upon a
keyboard onto Facebook and forums from vexed fingers. Said band has made their
name by making music of a particular countenance, a countenance which has
consequently allowed them to do what is, for so many of us, a past time and a
far off dream, as a breadwinning day job. But with every release comes the
severing of opinion and taste in which the artist – most likely a restless soul
who yearns for renewed landscapes in which to live out their creative impulses
– can simply never win. If they rehash and regurgitate the same ideology and
blueprint that put them where they are today then, as much as many a diehard
will dance joyously around their living rooms to the pleasing tones of
familiarity, the other half of their fan base are left craving – and
complaining about – a lack of growth and evolution. And then of course, the
situation is very much the same in reverse, as is with the case with The Sword’s
fifth and most ‘against
the grain’ album they’ve penned to date, ‘High Country.’

As a record that marks the spot of 2015 in the band’s timeline, ‘High Country’ may only show vestiges
of the gruff aural assault of those first two status-cementing albums, but its
genetic make-up is still very much The Sword, contrary to those anger-riddled
keyboard warriors. This is just a band that wants to “age gracefully,” as guitarist and frontman John ‘J.D’ Cronise jestingly puts it. Yet, there are those who
demand a cyclical repetition of the heavy riffs and the wham-bam-thank-you-mam
mentality they were founded upon.
Facebook comments have included such wonderfully narrow minded phrases
as “you’re sucking corporate dicks”
and the unforgettable go-to: “Sell
outs.”

“It’s not that we tried to make an
album that people wouldn’t like but when we were recording, we were very aware
that there would be fans who like our older material who would maybe not quite
get this new one,”
states a very honest and open J.D. Cronise.
“But that’s okay, that’s gonna happen,
you can’t please everyone. But I think a lot of those people who like our older
material and might not dig this album in particular are listening to it looking
for a certain sound. But there are many other bands out there who are doing
exactly what they’re looking for, so I think they’ll be okay.”

The
founding member, who tells me he could easily write what the long-standing,
heaviness devouring fans want but simply isn’t inspired to, formed this band “from a fan’s perspective.” Time, the
wisdom that accompanies it and the changing of circumstances too however, has
sought a remoulding of that mind set:

J.D.’High Country’ is the sound of The Swordin 2015, you know? We’re trying to age
gracefully. For us we have tokeep it interesting. Continuing along the exact
same path gets boring after a while. I’m not inspired to write material that
sounds like our older albums, when I’m playing and I come up with a riff that
sounds too much like ‘Apocryphon’or ‘Age of Winters’ then I move on. We’ve
already done that. I want to explore new things in everything that we do and also
to kind of reflect on what we’re listening to and liking at that moment in time
which, at the moment, is a lot of and old country, traditional southern music.
And of course some 70s pop and rock and psychedelic stuff, so as a band we
don’t really listen to really heavy, super aggressive music anymore, so why
write it? We felt that, or at least I felt like this album needs to be a part
of what we’re into right now. When I started the band I started it from a fan’s
perspective but now I don’t want it to get to the point where it’s not artistry
anymore and it’s just pleasing fans. So I kinda had to reset that perspective
and think, now in 2015, this is what is true to me.”

The
record itself is one that has already polarised fans, despite those opinions
being based off the few singles and teasers to be released thus far. But the
bigger picture is one that deserves an open mind, a fresh viewpoint, just as
the band gave these songs when setting upon the task of following up 2012’s ‘Apocryphon.’ It’s an evolved band; yes
some of their brutality has eroded and some of their gruffness too, but they’ve
been replaced, equalled even, by brains and graciousness. ‘Silver Petals,’ a beautiful and serene acoustic instrumental is
far removed from the band that wrote ‘Freya’
sonically, but mentally and physically, it’s a song
born from the same hands. The title track, the first taster of the new record
for the fans, isn’t an attack on the ear drums – it’s more a caressing thanks to
its mellow delivery and subtle harmonies – but there is more to it than just
aggression. It’s the most intelligent and well-rounded release by far. They
continue to push themselves farther and farther into new trajectories, not
minding if they leave a few fans coughing, confused and bemused, in the dust
clouds behind them.

Says J.D: “These songs came about
from taking some time off and just writing for fun and not really being
bothered where they went. We were just allowing them to flow and being more
experimental. It would probably have been more difficult in retrospect had we
tried to create the sound we eventually found on this record.”

One
such example of this renewed and more cultured The Sword is the classy,
brass-tinged opus ‘Early Snow.’

J.D.“The brass can be attributed to
our producer Adrian [Quesada], it was an idea of his and that’s why he hired
him; to come up with ideas like that. It’s funny though because with his
background he’s more used to dealing with Latin sounds and grooves [production
credits range fromGrupo FantasmaandBrownoutto Bobby
Patterson] and he didn’t want to bring in any of that onto our record, I
think he was trying to not inject his
own sound into ours. But after a while he kinda reluctantly brought it up: ‘I
don’t wanna say this but I think this one song would be really cool with some
horns on it.’ And yeah, we were totally agreeable to that. So he brought in the horn players and let
them go. He told them his vague idea but he let them take the lead on that, so
it was a collaborative effort.”

The
result is, upon first listen of the song, a major surprise. You don’t expect to
hear the brass come marching in, all grandiose and emphatic. But alongside
other inspired surprises, like the 70s pop skit of ‘Seriously Mysterious,’ the aforementioned ‘Silver Petals’ and, the 13th Floor Elevators channelling
‘Turned To Dust’ and the lulling
closer ‘The Bees of Spring’ that
later explodes into a southern blues rock stomp, it’s plain to see why the band
didn’t want to simply become a formulaic entity. Writing songs as unique as these and as
un-intrinsic to what ‘The Sword’is
originally defined as is must be much, much more fun and rewarding.

J.D.“The artwork is by a guy named
Jetter Green who’s an artist from San
Diego. I stumbled across his work in a shop near where
I lived. With ‘High Country’ I kinda wanted a cover with a photo on it rather
than a painting and that sort of artwork. All of our covers have been very
different, they’ve all been very fantastical and this one is still cool and
psychedelic but not with that same fantasy presentation. The songs aren’t about
that sort of stuff, there’s still some of that imagery but the songs are a bit
more personal, relatable and comprehensible on this record. You don’t need to
be a fan of science fiction to know what I’m talking about.

“I mean, there are some songs like
‘Tears Like Diamonds’ and ‘The Dreamthieves’ which have touches of science
fiction, they are titles lifted fromMichael Moorecomic books, but for the
most part, the lyrics themselves aresomething else. They’re more metaphors for
the true meanings of the songs; I just picked out these poetic phrases that
stuck with me. But that’s about it. I tried, in a way, to not take that
approach to write songs directly inspired by a book because I’ve done it
before. It was cool to me at the time but I wanted these lyrics to be more
self-generated than referential.”

And
so their artwork has moved forward parallel with the music: “I’ve always tried to have colour schemes
that I think are appropriate to the mood of each album,”J.Drelates. “So with the first one it was very blue and
hue because it was ‘Age of Winters’ it needed to be cold. The second one full
of is greys and blacks, [which are] really powerful colours and the third one
has a very cool black and red colour scheme.
‘Apocryphon’ was very colourful and all over the place so with this one
when we were getting it sorted out, one of the options we wanted to go for was
a very light cover. We adapted the original few ideas; we wanted more of one
thing and less of others. We were debating about a light cover or a dark cover
but we went for light because we already have some very dark covers and feel it
reflects the album better.”

For
the third time in this piece, I’m going to use the word surprise, as it really
is, as far as the band’s musical lineage is concerned, their most surprising
record yet. It never sits still in terms of springing new dimensions and
aesthetics upon the listener, but therein lays its magic. Fickle fans will be
quick to judge the record from the dialled down distortion on the title track –
something which continues throughout the record – but if you give this record a
chance, I know pre-existing fans of the band will warm to, if not fall in love
with this record. The human heart is lousy as it doesn’t make sense, emphasised
through those polarised opinions plastered all over the internet like some
political campaign, but J.D himself
knows that. The band were aware of the impact it would have upon their fan
base, he’s hardened to it.

All
in all though, there seems to be a feeling amongst those who have embraced this
change and evolution that those left behind in the dust trail are missing out –
a crying shame. But more fool them; ‘High
Country’ is one of this year’s stand out record’s. To steal a phrase from one of the album’s
song titles itself: ‘Suffer no fools’,
just enjoy the improving genius that is this Texan four piece.

Band Submissions

To those bands who have recently issued their first demo or album via bandcamp and would like to be featured on our 666 Pack Review or considered for a full review or stream please contact Aaron via email including your EPK, band bio, album file or download code, including artwork.

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We will consider bands from any genre but exclusively stoner, sludge, doom, psych, post-metal, experimental, black-metal etc. (Whilst I would like to respond to every email, this is not always possible.) Thanks